I hate being lectured by people who don't understand what I'm feeling

I'm severely depressed trying my hardest to function and work myself away from suicidal thoughts. It's hard as most of you are aware. If I could change how I feel I would. Yet there are people in my life who attribute what I'm going through as being lazy or not understanding how depression can be crippling. It makes me feel even worse. I find myself isolating even more to cope but of course it doesn't help. How do you deal with this situation?

Ooooh, you have hit on one of my favorite pet peeves. I am annoyed beyond words by people who have never been depressed in their lives and yet who feel competent to give advice about it. And when their useless, though possibly well meaning advice doesn't work....it's your fault. Grrrr.

It will help you enormously to be in contact with other people like those of us in this forum. We will let you know you are not alone and give you hope and a listening ear and get mad on your behalf when you run into someone who treats you poorly.

The main thing is: this is a disease and never let some blowhard tell you different. I cope by reading up on mental illness, in particular on the research into brain chemistry. I figure someone who tries to tell me I'm imagining it or just seeking attention is just ignorant and needs to bone up on their reading list. It still hurts, though. I lost a very dear friend just last year when my depression was especially bad. Even though I tell myself she couldn't have been much of friend, it does hurt. The reality is: most people who have never experienced depression haven't a clue what it's about. It helps not to hold it against them, even while ignoring their negative messages as best you can.

Learn to treasure yourself! Depressed people have a hard time doing that.

You can tell those people that they have no idea what you are going through and that they know nothing about your life. And you can tell them to back off and stop lecturing you. Just be firm and assertive. You can even completely cut those people out of your life if you wanted to.

I hate this too. Especially from my brother. He's always like ''I do not want to hear anything negative'' or ''you'll be fine''. How the heck can he know that?! He is going to have even more problems in life than I do if he doesn't want to hear anything negative. I feel your pain.

A lot of people wouldn't understand how I am either and think that I'm just a loser. Fortunately I have only a few people in my life that matter so I don't really have to worry about it, but it would really bother me. I'm sure that a lot of people probably think that I'm just a bum because I don't keep up with my personal hygene the way that I used to. I always used to dress really sharp and showered every day for work, but since I've been ill, it just isn't a priority for me. I don't really care what other people think. They can go to hell. Once while I was in the hospital, the doctor seemed to care more whether I had a fresh pair of clothes and whether I'd showered or not more than she did about helping me.